Hooray for commentators!
I like how commentators spur me on to more and better blogging. I enjoy having my ideas refined and helped and challenged by thoughtful commentators. Maybe if I tell more people about my blog…I’ll receive more comments! Whaddya think?!
Brian and I have been working hard on cleaning our home in preparation for this weekend’s Desiring God National Conference. The title of the conference is “Above All Earthly Powers”, a phrase taken from Martin Luther’s famous Hymn “A Mighty Fortress.” The topic of the conference is postmodernism. It is sold out although I’ve heard that we’re joining the “live blogging” Christian conference hype this year as Tim Challies is joining us. Check out the link to the conference here.
Also, John Piper’s latest book, for any who may have missed it, is currently online in PDF format here. It is called “What Jesus Demands from the World.” Kind of an odd title in my opinion, which probably means that I should reserve judgment until I’ve read the book! And now that it’s online, I can read it! Not sure how the PDF offering will help sales, but hey, I think it’s cool.
ALL is for Christ
It is frustrating to me when Christians come to church with a consumer mentality. Sometimes this exhibits itself in not contributing to the church’s ministries (while still taking up space and air in the pew every Sunday for years at a time) and sometimes it simply comes out in a “felt needs” mentality: “does this church meet my needs? my ideals? my desires?” seems to be our primary question. It has often been my primary question, and I struggle with it often. On the flip side, Christians often worry about whether everyone’s “needs” (whether real or felt) are being met through the church. We spend more time worrying about making everyone happy then in getting everyone to be happy in Christ regardless of their needs or desires.
I struggle with this often and many people I know seem to struggle with it as well. We need to remind ourselves that nothing in this universe exists for us. Everything in the universe exists for Christ. Christ is plain that in all of our circumstances, we can have contentment, if we have Christ. The church does not primarily exist for us. It’s ministries do not primarily exist for us. If we feel like we have a need that is not being met, then our primary responsibility is to pray and look to Christ and ask him how He would choose to meet that need at this time in our lives, through Himself or through other means, or even asking Him to change our felt needs if He directs us to do so. What we often do instead is expect the church to meet our needs, perfectly when possible. We live in a Burger King culture that insists that we can have indeed have it our way, and our Christian church culture is not far behind in offering whatever it can to meet our felt needs. While it is true that we have real needs and not just felt needs, the church doesn’t primarily exist to meet felt or real needs. Our realest of real needs was met on the cross, and we forget it all to quickly. The church exists to glorify Christ, and any needs that are met are met not primarily by the church or its ministries but by Christ, who is the Head of the church. He uses the church to accomplish His purposes but church will never meet every single person’s needs perfectly, and that is ok, because that is not the purpose for which it was created, as Colossians clearly shows us.
Col. 1:15-20: HE is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by HIM all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through HIM and for HIM. And HE is before all things, and in HIM all things hold together. And HE is the head of the body, the church. HE is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything HE might be preeminent. For in HIM all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through HIM to reconcile to HIMSELF all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of HIS cross (emphasis mine…I mean, emphasis: Christ!)
Christ-centeredness…we have such a long way to go. I have such a long way to go.
New Blog on the blogroll…
My latest blog on the blogroll is that of a family I recently heard about. Their name is the Dyktras and this summer they moved — all five of them — to Zambia to work with World Vision doing homecare training and visits.
The cool thing though, the thing that really stood out to me, was that one of their daughters, who is but 8 years old, was moved (while the family was still living in Minnesota) to start a non-profit organization called “Things for Children” (and other people who need help!). By selling crafts and handiwork that she had made, she was able to help buy food and clothing for impoverished people that she knew personally in Africa. She continues her ministry now in Zambia, distributing food and clothing to those she meets when her family visits villages in Africa. (I think at this point some uncles have given her some capital to work with as well). I was really moved when I received an email from a friend that detailed this narrative — mostly touched by the love that God would give a young child for those in need…
To read more about the family’s journey, pay their blog a visit.
Women in Africa
I love these images from Uganda. These were taken by a friend of mine when we visited the village of Masaka. These women had (I think) mostly come for the health clinic that we ran for three days there. They came dressed in their best; I noted with irony how I had brought only clothes I didn’t care about ruining to Africa with me…
Forms of Government
Check out this article in Wikipedia about how many forms of government are in the world. Maybe I’m just a nerd, but I was fascinated by the different types of governments that exist out there. Can you guess what a “kleptocracy” is (hint: most governments in Africa could be referred to in this manner)? Did you know that “tyranny” is an actual form of government?
Ah, the things you can learn when you’re supposed to be doing other things…
One more movie
Brian and I watched another heartwarming flick about a girl in south L.A. who, with the help of her community, goes to the National Spelling Bee. It’s a fun, easy, and engaging watch. Akeelah and the Bee is worth a watch.
Small
Sorry pictures are so small. I’m tired of trying to figure out how to adjust the size to perfection on the mac…if any mac users have tips about what size to post at, feel free to send them my way.
Tonight Brian and I spoke (with some other members of our team) about our Africa trip to a youth group at church. I talked about our first week in East Africa. Here’s what I said:
My trip to Africa
If I had to choose three words to describe my trip to Africa, I would say it was: HUMBLING, FRUITFUL, and INTENSE. Humbling, because God used us in spite of ourselves in a foreign culture that we were not really prepared to encounter, and fruitful, because people so badly wanted God’s word and power to change their lives, and intense because we were under spiritual attack at various points throughout the trip.
Brian and I arrived in Uganda a week earlier than the rest of the team. As we began to depend on the Ugandan nationals for everything from directions to phone numbers to rides, God was at work to humble us as visitors in a foreign culture. The first couple of days we were there, we visited an orphanage for street children that was run by a man named Reverend Sempangi. Rev. Sempangi had started orphanages during the country’s downfall under dictator Idi Amin, and he had also served on Parliament and founded the Presbyterian church network in Uganda. Even though this man was famous throughout Uganda, he lived his life in a completely humble manner. He didn’t even have running water in his house, and he was starting his own pig farm, chicken farm, and mushroom farm so that the orphanage could be self sustaining. The kids that he served, he said, would sleep in huge piles of trash by the side of the road to stay warm when it got cold out. They would contract cholera and other diseases from this habit and then die by the roadside. Their bodies would eventually be dragged back to the piles of trash for burning. Literally, these children were considered trash. We were amazed at Rev. Sempangi’s love and dedication to serving these “throwaway” kids, even at personal cost to Himself.
The next few days we spent in a town called Jinja which is at the source of the Nile River. Little did we know that we were about to walk into a very spiritually intense atmosphere. Brian’s job was to be part of a pastor’s training seminar for two days of Bible teaching, and my job was to train new young women converts in the areas of godliness and preventative health care. The night before we began our teaching ministries, I came under some intense spiritual attack, seeing and hearing things that weren’t real. It was terrifying, and very humbling as I did not at all feel prepared for the very spiritual conflict that we were under. I realized that God alone was able to protect us and to preserve our ministries through that type of spiritual attack, and He did. The next day we had one of the most fruitful ministries of our trip as we taught and preached. We later found out that there was a ton of spiritual confusion in the area, with a center for witchcraft right next to the church plant we were serving with, as well as a Mormon temple and some health and wealth gospel centers. It was amazing to see God bring people to obedience under His Word.
Finally, I will leave you with a story from my last day of class in this village. This village was extremely poor, and the people I was with probably lived on about a dollar a day. Their needs were so overwhelming. To give you an idea of what it was like, the whole community there shared a village outhouse. The churches were all open air, built outside. The women cooked in holes in the dirt filled with charcoal in their front yards. Even though there were so many needs, and even though all these new Christian knew that we were “rich” Americans, only once did someone ask me for something. It was a young woman with a few small children who had walked for several miles to get to the place where I was teaching. She didn’t want to ask for anything out loud, but I could see her writing a note to me on a piece of scrap paper. She gave it to me and I braced myself thinking “Oh, no, here it comes, my first request for money.” I looked at the paper, and what she had written was “Can I have an English Bible please?” You see, like most Christians in Ugandan villages, she didn’t have any version of the Bible at all. I was ashamed to tell her that I had not brought extra Bibles. I had been so concerned with the physical needs these people had, and even though those needs were great, the people were even hungrier for God than they were for food on the table.
So, that is my story and I hope that it encourages you to consider going on a short term missions trip yourself sometime. You don’t need to have great qualifications to go – just a willingness to step out in faith and allow God to prove himself faithful.
Good Movie: Cinderella Man
One movie that Brian and I enjoyed watching over our little anniversary vacation was Cinderella Man, with Russell Crowe and Rene Zellweger. It’s a heartwarming and inspiring story of a boxer’s comeback during the Great Depression. The fight scenes are intense, but not gratutiously violent. It’s well-scripted, well-filmed, and based on a true story as well (the life of James J. Braddock of New Jersey). In fact, this movie was so good that Brian stayed up until 12:30 at night and stayed awake the whole time to finish watching it. That doesn’t even happen with Star Wars movies…
I’ll post some pictures from our first anniversary vacation soon…
Marks of a Christian: A Broken Heart
[First, a quick disclaimer. Why are we doing this "marks of a Christian" thing? We're doing it because we not only are Christians, but we want to be known as Christians for the right reasons. The Bible abounds with descriptions of what a Christian is like. We want to focus on these to keep ourselves in check, to exhort ourselves to keep growing into the Jesus-look-alike that God pictures his people as in the Bible.]
As Luke 18:9-14 so clearly illustrates, the humble and penitent heart is a non-negotiable mark of a Christian. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” A broken heart signifies true repentance, without which a “Christian” is not a Christian. Nevertheless, this is an area where we need to keep growing as Christians. I struggle with not being broken-hearted. I find the following lyrics from Derek Webb to be quite heart-searching.
i’ve got faith in the bank and money in my heart
i’ve got a calloused place where your ring used to be, my lovei’ve traded naked and unashamed
for a better place to hide
for a righteous mask, a suit of fig leaves and lies
chorus 1
i thought the cattle on a thousand hills
was not enough to pay my bills
and i fell in love with those who proved me wrong
and now i want a broken heart
now there’s a great pad lock
on the place where i was free
and i’m feeling bad from swallowing that key
now i work real hard but i mostly call in sick
of a broken back from the ground fighting back at me
chorus 2
i cannot look you in the eye
so i check the knots on my disguise
‘cause i fell in love with fashion in the dark
and now i want a broken heart
chorus 3
i’ve got alibis for every crime
a substitute to do my time
‘cause Your heart breaks enough on both our parts
so now i want a broken heart
now i want a broken heart
now i want a broken heart
I want to be, as one friend put it “addicted to confession.” I have a very long way to go in this area, but God says this is really important to Him! I am praying that it will be more important to me than it is.
